You're a legendary, pioneering rock star, you've headlined sold-out gigs all over the world, indulged in every rock 'n' roll decadence imaginable, survived drug addiction and alcohol abuse, crossed paths with the likes of Madonna, Courtney Love, Robert Plant and Johnny Depp, and released a revealing and critically-acclaimed autobiography. You've done all this and lived to tell the tale...so, what do you do next? Well, if you're MINISTRY's Al Jourgensen, you join forces with British dark-artist Sam Shearon, a.k.a. "Mister-Sam," to create a series of comic books and become a super hero yourself.

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord - The Chronicles Of Alien F. Jourgensen", a 13-issue comic book series, is targeted to premiere at next July's Comic-Con in San Diego. Each issue in the series will be based on a MINISTRY album, including the platinum-certified "Psalm 69", the gold sellers "The Land Of Rape And Honey" and "The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste", as well as "Filth Pig", "Rio Grande Blood", "The Last Sucker" and "Relapse", all Top 20 albums on Billboard chart, among others.

Said Jourgensen, "I've been wanting to step away from music for a bit, switch gears...then I met Sam and then POOF! Sam turns me into a super hero. Ya, I'll sign up for that!"

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord" series will have a single story arc joining all 13 comic books together, and is themed in chronological order similar to MINISTRY's catalogue. The main thread will focus on aliens, conspiracy theories, the occult and the vile and corrupt world of governments... and of course record labels. The idea for a MINISTRY comic book was conceived by MINISTRY manager Angelina Jourgensen. The story/script of the comic book, written by Sam Shearon was inspired by conversations about Al's life with both Al and Angelina Jourgensen who provided the factual ingredients for Shearon to write this epic. Shearon has written the copy, created all of the characters and has designed and illustrated the artwork for all 13 main covers as well as the inner illustrations throughout the entire series.

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord" follows the adventures of Alien F. Jourgensen, a young musician who is discovered by a record label that seeks to change him, mold him, and control him. But as Alien focuses his attention on doing what he is truly passionate about — playing music — he discovers his true talent and becomes aware of the inherent powers that set him apart from everyone else, powers that are triggered by music. As his power grows, he sees truths that others don't: chilling realities about everything from the true intentions of those who really run the planet, to the untapped powers that lie within all of us.

The story is seen as an alternative view of the life and times of Alien F. Jourgensen and his rise to "super" power that you won't find in his autobiography. Combining elements of history and real-life Jourgensen experiences — including many tidbits that were left out of his recent autobiography — the comic books will have our hero traveling the world as a rock musician where he meets and interacts with figures such as William Burroughs and Timothy Leary.

"I'd love to have people like Trent Reznor, Billy Gibbons and Billy Haynes be characters in the series," said Jourgensen. "I mean, who doesn't want to be a super-hero?"

You're a legendary, pioneering rock star, you've headlined sold-out gigs all over the world, indulged in every rock 'n' roll decadence imaginable, survived drug addiction and alcohol abuse, crossed paths with the likes of Madonna, Courtney Love, Robert Plant and Johnny Depp, and released a revealing and critically-acclaimed autobiography. You've done all this and lived to tell the tale...so, what do you do next? Well, if you're MINISTRY's Al Jourgensen, you join forces with British dark-artist Sam Shearon, a.k.a. "Mister-Sam," to create a series of comic books and become a super hero yourself.

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord - The Chronicles Of Alien F. Jourgensen", a 13-issue comic book series, is targeted to premiere at next July's Comic-Con in San Diego. Each issue in the series will be based on a MINISTRY album, including the platinum-certified "Psalm 69", the gold sellers "The Land Of Rape And Honey" and "The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste", as well as "Filth Pig", "Rio Grande Blood", "The Last Sucker" and "Relapse", all Top 20 albums on Billboard chart, among others.

Said Jourgensen, "I've been wanting to step away from music for a bit, switch gears...then I met Sam and then POOF! Sam turns me into a super hero. Ya, I'll sign up for that!"

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord" series will have a single story arc joining all 13 comic books together, and is themed in chronological order similar to MINISTRY's catalogue. The main thread will focus on aliens, conspiracy theories, the occult and the vile and corrupt world of governments... and of course record labels. The idea for a MINISTRY comic book was conceived by MINISTRY manager Angelina Jourgensen. The story/script of the comic book, written by Sam Shearon was inspired by conversations about Al's life with both Al and Angelina Jourgensen who provided the factual ingredients for Shearon to write this epic. Shearon has written the copy, created all of the characters and has designed and illustrated the artwork for all 13 main covers as well as the inner illustrations throughout the entire series.

"Ministry: The Devil's Chord" follows the adventures of Alien F. Jourgensen, a young musician who is discovered by a record label that seeks to change him, mold him, and control him. But as Alien focuses his attention on doing what he is truly passionate about — playing music — he discovers his true talent and becomes aware of the inherent powers that set him apart from everyone else, powers that are triggered by music. As his power grows, he sees truths that others don't: chilling realities about everything from the true intentions of those who really run the planet, to the untapped powers that lie within all of us.

The story is seen as an alternative view of the life and times of Alien F. Jourgensen and his rise to "super" power that you won't find in his autobiography. Combining elements of history and real-life Jourgensen experiences — including many tidbits that were left out of his recent autobiography — the comic books will have our hero traveling the world as a rock musician where he meets and interacts with figures such as William Burroughs and Timothy Leary.

"I'd love to have people like Trent Reznor, Billy Gibbons and Billy Haynes be characters in the series," said Jourgensen. "I mean, who doesn't want to be a super-hero?"

Aw. All the early stuff is super cute. It's infantile to the point where it becomes sort of adorable, in a 'let's play dress up' kind of way.

Ministry = Al and Al = Crap, but the period from ...Rape And Honey to The Mind... (especially those awesome side projects and RevCo) is serious guilty pleasure territory. I'll give him a degree of credit for surrounding himself with some very talented people during this phase. Good taste in drummers. But the later guitar heavy stuff (Psalm 69, Filth Pig etc...) has not aged well. I remember rating the sludgy smack period, but it just sounds plain bad now.

Shamelessly stupid pop music can be fun, but the obnoxious, shallow posing gets increasingly tricky to ignore, and even the stronger tunes are devoid of the trashy, kinky charm that a lot of the best WaxTrax stuff has. Growing up sucks.

M.H wrote:Ministry = Al and Al = Crap, but the period from ...Rape And Honey to The Mind... (especially those awesome side projects and RevCo) is serious guilty pleasure territory. I'll give him a degree of credit for surrounding himself with some very talented people during this phase.

Yeah, I noticed on Discogs that all the good/decent songs on Mind were written by Chris Connelly.

atomjackfuser wrote: Yeah, I noticed on Discogs that all the good/decent songs on Mind were written by Chris Connelly.

To be fair to Mr Jourgensen, in Chris Connelly's excellent autobiography he talks about the drug fuelled collaborative process that generated that music. Nearly everything was written in the studio. But I don't think Chris did more than sing lead on a few songs and work on the lyrics w/ Al and Ogre from Skinny Puppy. The music (and more importantly the mixing) was mostly Al and Paul.

I stand by my crap vote, but ...Rape and Honey, The Mind... , the live recordings from the Mind tour (official releases and bootlegs) and the excellent Side Trax comp are all great.

There's a lot that's crap about this band, from early accent-aping to the embarrassing recent output. They had a strong run of albums, and yeah, I will include some of Twitch (All Day is a great song). Even that perennial goth dance floor filler about Halloween is pretty good, dire fucking lyrics about living with lizards notwithstanding.

A lot of this band's output hits me in a way that I can't explain. They are absolutely ridiculous. But they made a lot of songs I really, really like. Not crap.

Heaviest band to ever live. Eat you alive and leave you for dead heavy. My buddy worked in Uncle Bucks studio, during the Filth Pig album, in Chicago. Al's drug dealer comes to the studio to deliver drugs, crack, H, who knows what, the dealer ODs while in the studio, Al says, "let em' die"... dead serious like. Everyone else freaks out Don't get no heavier than that.

He may be an asshole, he may have raped your dog while he was high, he may have been a girl scout sell out, his shit is as heavy as it gets. All lead in that sack. Plus, come on, unless you're an asshole, his records are insane heavy and thought provoking. And come on, Paul Barker, give it up....

Actually, I hope no one ever likes them so then they are all mine. Too heavy for the post punk cliche and too weird for the metal kids.